RIM Scoops Up Antenna Specialist Paratek

by Gaurav Kheterpal on March 12, 2012

There’s already a looming sense of disappointment that RIM is likely to fall short of expectations in the coming quarters, thanks largely due to listless sales and a lack of urgency to launch the much-hyped BlackBerry10 smartphones. However, that hasn’t deterred the Waterloo giant from making another acquisition.

And this time, RIM’s scooped upParatek Microwave Inc, a company whose adaptive radio-frequency technology improves mobile-handset call quality and battery life. It’s believed that RIM may leverage this acquisition to improve the overall performance of its next generation BlackBerry smartphones.

Paratek is a well-known player in developing adaptive tuning technologies for multi-band handsets. Paratek’s proprietary technology ParaScan enables frequency front-end component solutions to vary capacity with voltage fluctuations to adapt to different bands. The company is based in New Hampshire and its investors include big names such as Polaris Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Novak Biddle Venture Partners, Investor AB, STMicroelectronics, S-Group Capital Management, Grande Ventures, New Markets Venture Partners and In-Q-Tel.

General Partner of Polaris Venture Partners Alan Spoon believes RIM would benefit immensely by integrating Paratek’s game changer technology into mobile phones. He says the technology allows mobile devices to upload and download large amounts of data faster, making for longer battery life, which coupled with Paratek’s innovative design, leads to a small form factor. More importantly, the Tunable RF reduces dropped calls and allowing reliable data flow across multiple frequency bands, thereby providing an overall enhanced mobile user experience.

“Paratek will continue to innovate and to bring leading edge adaptive tuning solutions to the industry,” Ralph Pini, chief executive of Paratek, said in a brief statement posted to the company’s website. “We look forward to working with our new colleagues and integrating our solutions into RIM’s BlackBerry product offerings.”

Post acquisition, the Paratek team will continue to focus on developing RF tuning technologies with support from the Waterloo giant. The financial detail of the deal has not been disclosed yet.

While it sounds like a great acquisition on paper, the key would be how quickly can RIM make it count.

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